vendredi, 20 novembre 2015

External control over Ukraine using network technologies

By Leonid Savin

Silicon Valley "Soros" and coups d’etat

Obviously, the Euromaidan in 2013 was not a spontaneous reaction to the Viktor Yanukovych and Mykola Azarov statement to examine more carefully the EU association agreement. It was planned and directed by foreign consultants and donors. If, at the time of the color revolutions in the beginning and the first half of the 2000s, the name of a financial speculator, George Soros, and his Open Society Institute that was quite active in the former Soviet countries after the collapse of the Soviet Union, were often mentioned; now new persons, paying for preparation for coups d’etat or undertaking neoliberal reforms, have appeared.

One of these persons is Pierre Omidyar , an American multi-billionaire, an Iranian migrant from France, the founder and owner of eBay. There are suspicions that the US intelligence services involved in the business, as well as in the Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook story that was strongly denied the possible connection with the CIA and the NSA. But, obviously, if the American security agencies keep an eye on the private correspondence and interests of citizens all over the world using its special programs, the purchase / sale through the virtual auction are also part of their interests. So all these processes are under their control.

Omidyar, like Soros, having earned his first easy money by selling tickets online in 1996 and then expanded the range of services significantly, raised his income and became an investor. In 2004, he together with his wife Pamela announced about his philanthropic ideas and founded the Omidyar Network. Like many other millionaire philanthropists, whether Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation who established their own foundation, or other American companies owners, Omidyar charities is mainly aimed at other countries, not at American society. Serious attention and considerable resources was given to the Mass medias. In 2010 the Omidyar company launched the project of Investigative Journalism (clearly to promote the democratic ideals like many other American benefactors do), and in 2013 he invested 25 million dollars in the First Look Media, a journalistic project. The Omidyar project united several key person such as Glenn Greenwald from the British newspaper Guardian , who had became known through publications based on the information leaked by Edward Snowden, Jeremy Scahill, who is known for his hotspots reporting, and Laura Poitras from the MacArthur foundation that connected with the Freedom of the Press Foundation.

But the financing programs of Ukrainian anti-government groups under the pretext of democratic transformation began earlier than the media project was launched.

According to the post on the Omidyar Network site, in 2011 more than 1 million dollars were invested in the Centre UA project. At the same time the USA invested about 335 thousand dollars in 2010, and about 770 thousand dollars in 2013. Officially, the investment was aimed to create openness and accountability of the government.

The paranoia that swallowed up the Maidan and other Ukrainian regions, where the activists repeated like a mantra statements on the Yanukovich’s regime corruption, was advisedly promoted by Centre UA organization: the Noviy Grazdanin (New Citizen), the Chestno (Honestly) and the Stop to Censorship that were financed by the Omidyar network.

All the NGOs are in hands of Anatoly Rybachuk, Viktor Yushchenko’s Secretary of State and Deputy Prime Minister who was in charge of Ukrainian integration into the EU, the NATO and other Western organizations. Omidyar himself boasted that his company would control public policy in Ukraine by the NGOs.

The Ukrainian counterpart of Pierre Omidyar has to be learnt in detail to understand more deeply the situation.

Rybachuk started his career in Kiev Customs service then traveled on abroad, so he was invited in the International Relations Department of the National Bank of Ukraine. There he met Viktor Yushchenko for the very first time. Rumor has it that it was him who introduced the future president with Catherine Chumachenko, the former CIA collaborator who later became his wife. Rybachuk passed internship on Wall Street and on the City of London: the two world financial centers. In 1999 – 2001 he was in head of the Ukrainian Prime Minister Service Victor Yushchenko, and in 2002 he became a member of the Viktor Yushchenko's block, named Our Ukraine. In February – September 2005 he took office of the Ukrainian Vice-Prime Minister on European integration of the first Yulia Tymoshenko’s government, and he chose this post himself. From September 2005 to October 2006 he was the State Secretary of Ukraine, then the head of the Presidential Office.Since October 2006 he was Staff Advisor of the Ukrainian President, Viktor Yushchenko. In 2008, he was fired, and then he headed the supervisory board of Foundation of the Suspіlnіst (Community).

It is very significant that in 2010 Rybachuk criticized his former boss, Viktor Yushchenko: "When he was president, I just realized that his policy on his political partners won’t lead to anything good. I got a lot of things when I worked on the President Office, and I realized that Yushchenko, unfortunately, was not the president who really wanted to adopt European reforms in Ukraine. We have no more cooperation, and I don’t see his anymore." However, he did not hesitate to use quite intensive and critical characteristics to describe other politicians and businessmen. Viktor Baloga who took his post in the Presidential Office was called phedo-oligarh and traitor. And Dmitry Firtash was described like: "Уou’ll never find any evidence that Firtash finance various politicians. If you claim it, you will face the court and lose the case. In Ukraine, the financing of political parties is very ambiguous process. Firtash, now, can finance under so many names, by such firms and small companies of his partners that you will never puzzle it out. But, like every big business, Firtash lays eggs in different baskets... If Tymoshenko became the President, Firtash would find a way to get closer to her".

However, Rybachuk started not that evident game against Ukrainian society by creating and helping opposition’s non-governmental organizations.

In December 2007, while being a presidential adviser, Rybachuk founded a Euro-Atlantic University in Kiev, jointly with his social organization Foundation Suspilnist and Europe XXI with the support of the Taras Shevchenko National Institute of Journalism of Kyiv, with the diplomatic missions of Slovakia and the USA in Ukraine, and with some domestic and foreign organizations.

On the opening ceremony the University gave its symbols to the NATO headquarter, and Rybachuk gave students a lecture, saying that the university's goal is to provide the global dialogue and understanding, to establish democratic values, to develop civil society and social partnership by strengthening the European and Euro-Atlantic cooperation. He noted that one of the project priorities is to attract people to take part in debates on the Ukrainian national interests and its new challenges, particularly in the security and the development of civil society.

At the same time, the Rybachuk’s foundation site posted the information that that in 2013-15, within the Euro-Atlantic studies, media, sports and creative activities, including the Euro-Atlantic schools of security and intercultural dialogue in different regions of Ukraine, are planned.

In mid-2011 some Ukrainian media said that Rybachuk took part in several journalistic projects, particularly, by coordinating the activities of the Ukrainskaya Pravda (Ukrainian Truth) journalists.

But the fundemental work, aimed to undermine and then overthrow the current government, was made with help of some NGOs that had a key role in preparing euromaidan: the New Citizen , the public association Center UA and the social movement Chesno (Honestly) that was founded and initiated by Rybachuk. The Chesno which has as its symbol, a garlic, and its slogan is "Filter Rada!", became the main network that other liberal Ukrainian NGOs and Western donors had joined. The Chesno financial and analytical report for October 2011– December 2012 shows such investors as the Renaissance International Foundation (the structure of the Soros Foundation), the Swedish Agency for Development Cooperation (SIDA), the US Agency for International Development (USAID), and the UNITER (the US government special program on Ukrainian reforms) , the IFES , Washington foundation for monitoring elections around the world, the international organization PACT Inc. and the Omidyar Network Fund.

It is possible to say that the whole work was led by Rybachuk in November 2011: a group of planners, facilitators, translators, speakers, communications manager, photo and video operators, editors and volunteers. The Chesno report reveals cities where the Ukrainian citizens’ brainwashing was conducted and who and how did it. It consists of arranging of round tables and panel discussions, creating of videos and websites, using social networks for promotion, making up of information products, conducting regions trips, broadcasting TV programs, foreign guests and international observers visiting. Some very enthusiastic activists (driving guest on a personal car, giving access to the facilities, regaling with cookies etc), were mentioned in the report.

Analyzing groups and organizations working with the Chesno, it turned out that the liberal and pro-European NGOs has close relations with the Ukrainian nationalist organizations and sometimes they are just the same institutions under different names.

For example, in Sumy, Ukrainian town, the Chesno partner is the Bureau for Policy Analysis. Its director is Oleg Medunitsa, the former head of the Nationalist Youth Congress, a vigorous Russophobe who arrange for many years activities against Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine (for example, the 2006 events in Chernigov when some activists tried to capture the church of St. Catherine) and pro-Russian movements (now he is the deputy for the Batkivshchyna (Fatherland) party). Other regions have practically the same situation.Meanwhile, in March 2012 Rybachuk, participating in the conference of the Ottawa Ukrainian-Canadian Congress announced that he was preparing a new Orange Revolution. In an interview to the Financial Post he said: "People are not afraid. We now have 150 NGOs in all the major cities in our ‘clean up Parliament campaign’ to elect and find better parliamentarians... The Orange Revolution was a miracle, a massive peaceful protest that worked. We want to do that again and we think we will."

Unfortunately, the Ukrainian government understood too late the real purpose of the NGOs network. Only in February 2014 the organizations were accused of money laundering. Rybachuk said then that he "considers these police actions as the continuation of systematic repression of authorities against civil society", noting that it was most likely caused by the Centre UA controversial film about Mezhyhiria (the Ukrainian Presinent’s residence), named Open Access, and by the Chesno members who had taken an active part in the Euromaidan events. But soon the militants and snipers did their duties, Yanukovich escaped, so the law-enforcement system of Ukraine came under the control of Euromaidan activists, and Rybachuk, as usual, could evade penalty.

Now is Omidyar’s turn.

The American edition Pando notes that " Omidyar working hand-in-glove with US foreign policy agencies to interfere in foreign governments, co-financing regime change with well-known arms of the American empire — while at the same time hiring a growing team of soi-disant "independent journalists" which vows to investigate the behavior of the US government at home and overseas, and boasts of its uniquely "adversarial" relationship towards these government institutions."

Jeremy Scahill who was recruited for the Omidyar project First Look Media, said in an interview on the new media agency policy: " We had a long discussion about this internally; about what our position would be if the White House asked us to not publish something ... With us, because we want to be adversarial, they won’t know what bat phone to call. They know who to call at The Times, they know who to call at The Post. With us, who are they going to call? Pierre? Glenn?"

Omidyar's case is not unique. And, unfortunately, the type of such activities is not limited by the only one country. Using vast resources and the latest technologies, the businessmen-philanthropists are often criticized for their great role in increasing social inequality. In the USA they are called Silicon Valley millionaires because all their offices are concentrated in the famous Silicon Valley in California.By the way, the Omidyar company board consists of another such a Silicon Valley millionaire, Marc Andreessen , co-founder of Netscape Communications Corporation and famous creatives engineer who worked with large firms of information technology sphere. Later he founded a venture capital fund, the Andressen Horowitz, and launched the first commercial online resource that offers virtual currency Bitcoin that was banned even in the United States. By the way, Andreessen has a quite specific view on science and knowledge, in 2013 he announced that the value of humanitarian education declined, and people only need to learn the math.

Often the relationship of the millionaires with American politicians who have a fairly aggressive program is marked.

For example, Peter Thiel, the founder of PayPal, used to finance Republican Ron Paul who has received from him about 2.6 million dollars for his Endorse Liberty project using the Super PAC system. Thiel calls himself a libertarian (that’s mean a supporter of the social and political groups whose members promote the legalization of sodomy and other indecencies of the "enlightened West") and an opponent of democracy. More interesting is the fact that The very first investor of Thiel’s commercial project, Palantir firm, founded in 2004, was the CIA venture capital firm CIA, In-Q-Tel. The Palantir client list consists of the US State Department, the CIA, the FBI, the Army, the Marines, the Air Force, the police departments in New York and Los Angeles, and a large number of financial institutions, trying to protect them self against bank fraud. But, at the same time, Palantir was involved in a scandal in 2011 when it was accused of "creating electronic dossiers on political opponents of the Chamber through illicit means."

The history of Omidyar financing the Ukrainian NGOs is interesting bythe financing scheme of the neo-liberal groups that continues the goal of the Orange Revolution, was widely spread by the journalist from one of the Omidyar project. It was Marcy Wheeler, the political analyst of The Intercept who focused on national security. Exploring the financial investment in Ukraine, he found out that the revolution in Ukraine is most likely a coup d’etat caused by "deep" forces following the interests of “Pax Americana”. Many other journalists decided to investigate it and find tracks of persons who had invested in Ukraine. This is a media boomerang that hit the eBay owner. At least in the USA, some independent media started to look after the activities of his company and other business connected to US intelligence agencies. But there are some specific characteristics. For example, the Pando notes that Omidyar now has in his team Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras , two persons who have access to a complete NSA database that was stolen by Snowden. So the same billionaire who started the Ukrainian revolution together with the USAID, has exclusive access to the secrets of the US National Security Agency, and only a some independent media dare voice a skeptical word about it.

Analysis of the activities of the Silicon Valley businessmen is badly needed in other countries for a full understanding of the current events.

The Kiev-ISIS Alliance

While we’re fighting the Islamic State, a.k.a. ISIS, in Iraq and Syria, and American officials tout the alleged danger of an attack on the US homeland, in Ukraine Washington and the Caliphate are fighting on the same side. A remarkable series of articles by Marcin Mamon in The Intercept has documented an aspect of the Ukraine conflict that no one else has paid any attention to: the role played by the "Dudayev Battalion," a fighting force of radical Islamists consisting of Chechens, but also including fighters from throughout the Caucasus as well as some Ukrainains.

The keys to Ukranie’s Islamist underground were handed to Mamon by a contact in Istanbul, "Khalid," who commands the ISIS branch there. "Our brothers are there," he told Mamon, and the reporter traveled to Ukraine where he was put in touch with a contact named Ruslan, who led him to Munayev’s clandestine camp.

Named after the first "president" of breakaway Chechnya, Dzhokhar Dudaev, the Dudayev Battalion was commanded by Isa Munayev, recently killed in a east Ukraine. Imbued with a fanatical hatred of the Russians, who are backing the rebels in the east, Munayev’s men also feel they are paying back a debt, since the ultra-nationalist Right Sector battalions now fighting for Kiev apparently helped the Chechens in the past. Right Sector is an openly neo-fascist paramilitary group which provided much of the muscle that made the coup against Viktor Yanukovych, former Ukrainian president, possible. Organized into various battalions, including the notorious Azov Brigade, they idolize the World War II collaborators with the Nazis, who fought Soviet troops: the ultra-nationalists have been accused of carrying out atrocities in the Donbass, as well as terrorizing their political opponents on the home front. According to Mamon, they also have been involved in fighting the Russians in far-off Chechnya, where former Right Sector bigwig Oleksandr Muzychko fought alongside Munayev and "the brothers" against the Russians. As Ruslan told Mamon:

"I am here today because my brother, Isa, called us and said, ‘It’s time to repay your debt. There was a time when the brothers from Ukraine came [to Chechnya] and fought against the common enemy, the aggressor, the occupier."

Aside from this solemn warrior ethic, another likely reason for ISIS support to Kiev is the access this gives the terrorists to Western targets. As Mamon puts it:

"Ukraine is now becoming an important stop-off point for the brothers, like Ruslan. In Ukraine, you can buy a passport and a new identity. For $15,000, a fighter receives a new name and a legal document attesting to Ukrainian citizenship. Ukraine doesn’t belong to the European Union, but it’s an easy pathway for immigration to the West. Ukrainians have few difficulties obtaining visas to neighboring Poland, where they can work on construction sites and in restaurants, filling the gap left by the millions of Poles who have left in search of work in the United Kingdom and Germany."

We are told that ISIS is planning terrorist attacks in Europe, and security forces are busy rounding up suspects all across the continent – and yet here is this gaping hole in the West’s defenses, where "the brothers" are quietly infiltrating without much notice in the Western media. In cooperation with ultra-nationalist groups like Right Sector, which have also formed their semiautonomous battalions, the Islamists of Ukraine, brandishing Ukrainian passports, have opened a gateway to the West.

Demands that Washington start giving lethal aid to the Ukrainian regime are now part of the foreign policy debate in Washington, with the usual suspects urging the administration to open the weapons spigot. Yet the Ukrainians are saying they’re already getting lethal aid from countries they refuse to identify, according to Ukrainian national security council official Oleg Gladovsky:

"[The aid is coming from] places where we have no influence and where there’s no public uproar about it (which we ourselves have helped created in some places, unfortunately). It’s from these countries that we’re now receiving lethal aid."

So where is this aid coming from?

"In eastern Ukraine," writes Mamon, "the green flag of jihad flies over some of the private battalions’ bases." But how "private" are these fighting groups?

The tatterdemalion Ukrainian army, consisting of poorly-motivated and poorly-armedconscripts, is a poor match for the separatists, who are fighting on their home turf against an invader. The Kiev regime is dependent on these "private" armies to provide the backbone of its fighting force, and there appears to be an uneasy symbiotic relationship between the regular Ukrainian army and these volunteers, with a hands-off approach taken by Kiev to the latter. If the Ukrainian regime is now openly acknowledging getting aid from unnamed countries, it’s fair to ask: is the Dudayev Battalion getting direct aid from the same sources supplying Syria’s radical Islamist rebels with arms – Qatar, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, and the Saudis?

As the US-funded-and –supported Syrian "moderate" rebels defect to ISIS in droves, the international jihadist network is extending its tentacles into Ukraine to take up the fight on behalf of their "brothers."

One of the key links between the Ukrainian ultra-nationalist factions and the Islamists was Oleksandr Muzychko, who fought alongside Chechen terrorist leader Shamil Basayev – the mastermind behind the Beslan school massacre – in the Chechen wars. Last year Muzychko was killed in a shoot-out with Ukrainian police, but before he went down he was the very visible public face of Ukraine’s ultra-nationalist movement.

In a video that went viral, Muzychko and a group of his fellow Right Sector stormtroopers entered the state prosecutor’s office in the city of Rivne, in northwestern Ukraine, and slapped the prosecutor around for not doing his job to Muzychko’s satisfaction. He also broke into a meeting of the Rivne city council, brandishing a gun, and declaring Right Sector would never disarm. While the authorities no doubt found Muzychko’s antics annoying, this sort of thing is "normal" in the new Ukraine, and it’s likely his involvement with the ISIS underground, rather than his public antics, brought down the ire of the authorities, who ambushed and shot him down on March 24 of last year. Was his involvement with the ISIS cell in Ukraine was becoming increasingly obvious, even to those in the West who had been content to look the other way?

That the Kiev authorities are working with the ISIS outpost is implied throughout Mamon’s piece: as Mamon made his way Munayev’s encampment in the company of Ruslan, they had no trouble at Ukrainian army checkpoints, where the opportunity to collect bribes was foregone and they were waved right through. Throughout Mamon’s piece we hear Munayev’s complaints of poverty: the Dudayev Battalion, we are told, must depend on criminal activities to finance their jihad. Yet one minor oligarch, named "Dima," hands them $20,000, and there is talk of selling black market amber to "buyers in the Persian Gulf, including wealthy sheikhs" – perhaps the same wealthy donors who have so generously funded ISIS.

The links between the Kiev regime and the ISIS enclave in Ukraine are numerous, and only half-hidden. When Mamon arrived at Munayev’s camp, he was met by an armored car that, we are told, was donated by Ihor Kolomoisky, one of the richest men in Ukraine who was recently appointed governor of Dnipropetrovsk. Kolomoisky, despite his Jewish heritage, has no compunctions about allying himself with openly anti-Semitic groups like Right Sector, whose battalions he has financed: like the ISIS-affiliated jihadists he gifted with an armored car, all he cares about is the fight against Vladimir Putin, whom he despises.

Another indication of the ISIS-Kiev alliance is the escape of Adam Osmayev, deputy commander of the Dudayev Battalion, from a Ukrainian jail, where he had been serving a sentence for plotting Putin’s assassination. After the coup in Kiev, Munayev and his fellow fighters broke Osmayev out of prison: when they were confronted by Ukrainian police at a checkpoint, they were mysteriously allowed to pass. As Mamonreports:

"After a dramatic standoff, the Ukrainians allowed the Chechens to go free. (There is no way to confirm Ruslan’s account, but in the fall of 2014, the Odessa court suddenly declared that Osmayev had fulfilled enough of his sentence and had been set free). Osmayev and Munayev came back to Kiev, and the Dudayev battalion was created."

"From time to time," writes Mamon, "Munayev met with representatives of the Ukrainian Security Service, known as the SBU."

The Dudayev Battalion numbers around 500 fighters, but there are also other jihadist brigades in Ukraine, organized into "the Sheikh Mansour battalion, which broke off from the Dudayev battalion" and "is based close to Mariupol, in the southeast of Ukraine," as well as two other groups composed of Crimean Tatars, each consisting of about 500 jihadists.

As US aid flows into Ukraine, how much of it will trickle down to these allies of ISIS – and to what future use will it be put? If John McCain and Lindsey Graham have their way, US arms will soon find their way into the hands of these terrorists, whose jihad against the Russians is bound to turn westward and strike at the capitals of Europe.

This is blowback with a vengeance: we are creating our own enemies, and giving them the weapons to harm us, even as we claim the need for universal surveillance in order to fight them. The mad scientists formulating US foreign policy are raising an army of Frankenstein monsters – who are sure to come after their deluded creators.